https://www.scmp.com/rss/123138/feed Chandran Nair is the founder of the Global Institute for Tomorrow and member of the Club of Rome. He is also the author of ‘Dismantling Global White Privilege: Equity for a Post-Western World’ and ‘The Sustainable State: The Future of Government, Economy and Society’. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Chandran Nair Chandran Nair Many around the world will recall the striking image of Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi standing side by side at the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in September. It was there that China unveiled one of its most consequential diplomatic proposals in recent memory: the Global Governance Initiative (GGI). Yet a quick scan reveals how little coverage this moment received in mainstream Western media. Asking “why”... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3340205/china-has-worthy-blueprint-improve-un-system-why-west-ignoring-it?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3340205/china-has-worthy-blueprint-improve-un-system-why-west-ignoring-it?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 18 Jan 2026 02:30:10 +0000 Chandran Nair Chandran Nair Gaza was supposed to be our nadir. A horrific, isolated eruption of warfare’s most satanic ethos – the annihilation of the other – showing its true face to the world. Instead, the scale and persistence of Gaza’s destruction risks becoming normalised, just another data point in humanity’s catastrophic descent into ethnically and religiously motivated violence. As Israel and the United States’ recent unprovoked attack on Iran demonstrates, we live in an era of escalating wars, where international... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3321265/carbon-bootprints-how-war-fuelling-climate-catastrophe?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3321265/carbon-bootprints-how-war-fuelling-climate-catastrophe?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 09 Aug 2025 04:00:13 +0000 Chandran Nair Chandran Nair In early May, as Roman Catholic cardinals convened for their conclave, US President Donald Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself as the pope. Shortly afterwards, he declared that he would like to become a pontiff. Reactions from around the globe were swift, though not everyone was shocked. After all, this was American crassness at its finest – a spectacle the world has grown accustomed to. Trump is neither the first nor the only US figure to inure the world to such behaviour; there is a... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3312520/why-us-exceptionalism-and-export-crassness-finally-losing-its-shallow-appeal?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3312520/why-us-exceptionalism-and-export-crassness-finally-losing-its-shallow-appeal?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 31 May 2025 04:00:16 +0000 It has been over a month since the launch of DeepSeek AI sent shock waves through the global tech and investor landscape, reverberating far beyond the confines of Silicon Valley. This wasn’t solely about algorithms or data; it was a bold statement of innovation, a challenge to the entrenched dominance of Silicon Valley, and a mirror held up to the hypocrisy of zero-sum Western capitalism. Why? Because DeepSeek’s defining feature wasn’t a groundbreaking technological advancement – it was the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3299678/ai-silicon-valley-fears-how-deepseek-democratised-innovation?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3299678/ai-silicon-valley-fears-how-deepseek-democratised-innovation?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 23 Feb 2025 02:00:21 +0000 Since the beginning of this century – triggered by the United States’ illegal invasion of Iraq, its occupation of Afghanistan, and aided by the turbocharged arrival of the digital age – there has been significant growth in interest among those in the non-Western world around issues related to their colonial past. This quest has been shaped by those seeking answers to fundamental questions linked to events in their past and how these events shaped the world today – a world that for the first time... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3293301/west-and-rest-how-genocide-gaza-will-usher-end-his-story?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3293301/west-and-rest-how-genocide-gaza-will-usher-end-his-story?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 04 Jan 2025 04:00:19 +0000 Chandran Nair is the founder of the Global Institute for Tomorrow and member of the Club of Rome. He is also the author of Dismantling Global White Privilege: Equity for a Post-Western World and The Sustainable State: The Future of Government, Economy and Society. In a separate essay below, he spells out steps to untangle the humanitarian crisis in the Middle East. “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” – Archbishop Desmond Tutu In Gaza, the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3264030/israel-gaza-war-how-world-can-restore-humanity-and-lead-process-lasting-peace-middle-east?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3264030/israel-gaza-war-how-world-can-restore-humanity-and-lead-process-lasting-peace-middle-east?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 26 May 2024 06:00:20 +0000 On Monday, Hong Kong hosts the inaugural One Earth Summit international sustainability conference, co-organised by the World Economic Forum’s Giving to Amplify Earth Action initiative. We can expect the meeting to attract global business leaders and many of Asia’s top sustainability financiers. There’s hope that they will help steer investment into much-needed areas. But they need to avoid drinking the Kool-Aid of “saving the planet” through capital flows, glossing over the real crises we... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3256421/hong-kongs-one-earth-summit-must-set-sustainability-standards-not-hide-behind-superficial-talk-green?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3256421/hong-kongs-one-earth-summit-must-set-sustainability-standards-not-hide-behind-superficial-talk-green?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 23 Mar 2024 02:00:37 +0000 The headline of a Financial Times article on December 28, 2023 seemed to be a wild celebration that global defence order books were bulging as budgets were on a war footing. It outlined that US$760 billion of hardware was in the pipeline, with rising tensions feeding demand, and that investors were piling into stocks. The analysis painted an upbeat and positive outlook, rather than argue that this is a cause for grave concern. Nowhere in the report was there an examination of the travesty... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3247453/will-2024-be-year-rein-military-industrial-complex-biggest-threat-global-peace?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3247453/will-2024-be-year-rein-military-industrial-complex-biggest-threat-global-peace?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 06 Jan 2024 02:00:22 +0000 Just a week before Cop28, global “one-day temperatures” breached the 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warming point for the first time. This is short-term data, but it’s yet another reminder the world is falling woefully short of meeting the goal of preventing a 1.5-degree (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) rise: we’re moving from global warming to global boiling. Statements such as the above are rarely uttered by politicians for fear of scaring the public. A week into Cop28 and the headlines... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/article/3244438/cop28-governments-must-take-drastic-action-climate-not-pander-public-or-were-all-doomed-boil?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/article/3244438/cop28-governments-must-take-drastic-action-climate-not-pander-public-or-were-all-doomed-boil?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 10 Dec 2023 02:00:20 +0000 Irrespective of your political beliefs, the reality is that the worst wars of this century have a common thread: Western intervention, instigation, or historical entanglement. Today’s two most significant wars – Ukraine and Israel-Gaza – are no different. The West, led by the United States, has not been involved in its self-proclaimed capacity as a global peacemaker. Instead, it has played a role that the majority of the world views as self-serving, instigating, enabling, and deepening these... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3241045/gaza-and-graveyard-children-moral-decline-western-politics?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3241045/gaza-and-graveyard-children-moral-decline-western-politics?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 10 Nov 2023 10:00:20 +0000 It is hard to know what else to say about the awful conflict that is playing out in the Middle East. Hundreds of articles have been written by commentators from both sides of the ideological divide. What we know, however, is that it did not start on October 7, 2023; that there can be no winners; that it will not end if Gaza is razed to the ground; and that it has the potential to make the world an even more dangerous place. It puts into perspective all that loose talk in the last year by... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3238680/us-must-curb-israels-revenge-instinct-end-palestinian-suffering-wielding-its-power-peace?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3238680/us-must-curb-israels-revenge-instinct-end-palestinian-suffering-wielding-its-power-peace?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 21 Oct 2023 02:30:09 +0000 It makes for troubling times when war is on the agenda of powerful nations. With the global mainstream media cultivating narratives to convince the world that war is inevitable, it is time to ask a simple question: where are the peacemakers? There is one recent example: Saudi Arabia and Iran have reopened diplomatic channels, facilitated by China. China has accomplished an impressive diplomatic feat – brokering an agreement between two regional powerhouses that have a long history of antagonism... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3216355/can-west-move-beyond-business-war-and-work-china-other-nations-global-peace?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3216355/can-west-move-beyond-business-war-and-work-china-other-nations-global-peace?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 08 Apr 2023 00:30:11 +0000 A trend that became clear last year is the decline in trust towards Western media, which dominates the global media space. The largest news conglomerates have morphed into a powerful ally of Western governments, institutions and businesses when covering international affairs, and in the process have betrayed the calling of the independent fourth estate. Western commentators appear increasingly captive to preserving Western interests and are unable to move beyond entrenched ideological positions... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3205668/western-media-must-reflect-year-shameful-bias-china-qatar-world-news-coverage?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3205668/western-media-must-reflect-year-shameful-bias-china-qatar-world-news-coverage?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 07 Jan 2023 02:00:09 +0000 Ahead of this year’s Fifa World Cup in Qatar, many in the West have again assumed the moral high ground and condemned the Middle Eastern country for its standard of labour rights, its stand on LGBTQ issues and have called for boycotts. This is business-as-usual for Western media. But as Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp decried in a recent interview, the decision to select Qatar was made years ago – in Europe, where the sport’s governing body Fifa is based, and under extremely questionable... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3200077/calls-boycott-fifa-qatar-world-cup-2022-west-hypocritical-and-shameful?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3200077/calls-boycott-fifa-qatar-world-cup-2022-west-hypocritical-and-shameful?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 19 Nov 2022 01:00:13 +0000 Liz Truss’ catastrophically brief tenure as Britain’s prime minister – the fourth leader in six years of the world’s sixth-largest economy – has shattered the illusion that democracy is the be-all and end-all of approaches to governing societies and serving the needs of a citizenry. Of the last four to assume the position, three – Theresa May, Truss and now Rishi Sunak – were not elected by the people, but instead by a minority cabal of elites, driven by vested interests. The ideological and... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3198284/liz-truss-exit-uk-pm-highlights-failure-western-democracies-govern-fairly?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3198284/liz-truss-exit-uk-pm-highlights-failure-western-democracies-govern-fairly?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 05 Nov 2022 01:30:07 +0000 US President Joe Biden visited Asia last week and triggered panic across the region when he spoke out of turn and unproductively about war with China. At a time when the world is reeling from the effects of the war in Ukraine and when so much of the region is still trying to recover from the pandemic, including the economic fallout, Biden chose not to speak about peace and collaboration but instead deliberately fuelled tensions. This is unconscionable. It is high time for leaders of the region... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3180335/american-aggression-needs-be-reined-good-asia-and-world?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3180335/american-aggression-needs-be-reined-good-asia-and-world?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 04 Jun 2022 23:00:17 +0000 Lost in the fog of war is the truth that the Russia-Ukraine crisis has revealed the failings of Europe’s leaders on two fronts. First, why did they not see this coming? Because they are in denial about the nature of their subservient relationship with an increasingly reckless and hegemonic United States. Second, why do they maintain this relationship with America? Because they lack the spine to embrace the alternative: an independent foreign policy on a more equal standing with the rest of the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3175177/russia-ukraine-war-europe-failed-not-building-alliances-asia?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3175177/russia-ukraine-war-europe-failed-not-building-alliances-asia?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 23 Apr 2022 23:00:21 +0000 This month is perhaps the most trying period in the young lives of Malaysians aged 16 to 17, given they are currently sitting for the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM), or the Malaysian Certificate of Education examinations. For many teenagers, these exams will determine the course of their life, even their life ambitions: can I be a doctor, or a pilot, or a researcher in tropical diseases? Such dreams will be shaped by these exams, given the next critical stage of their young lives – the path to... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3170929/its-time-end-malaysias-educational-apartheid-facing-students?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3170929/its-time-end-malaysias-educational-apartheid-facing-students?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 20 Mar 2022 03:00:47 +0000 In 2020, the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States was watched by the world. Its message – that racism, particularly structural racism – was alive and well in the 21st century was powerful and resonated with many. However, racism is just the tip of the iceberg to a much deeper and insidious phenomenon: white privilege. While systemised racism against African Americans is terrible and must be addressed urgently, the reality is that white privilege has a global reach and very real... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3165408/racism-and-winter-olympics-are-just-tip-white-privilege-iceberg?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3165408/racism-and-winter-olympics-are-just-tip-white-privilege-iceberg?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 31 Jan 2022 22:30:26 +0000 Unknown to most people, the United States has embarked on an exercise to divide the world into two blocks – “democracies” and “authoritarian” states. What’s more, the US defines “authoritarian” as any country that refuses to follow the prescriptions of the West with regard to the political system it adopts. Yet the United Nations Charter, signed in 1945, did not mention the word democracy – because it is each nation’s sovereign right to pursue its own political system. And a nation’s choice is... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3158411/why-weaponising-democracy-against-china-will-backfire-us?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3158411/why-weaponising-democracy-against-china-will-backfire-us?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 03 Dec 2021 21:30:15 +0000 “It is unequivocal”: these are the first three words of the sixth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. The experts have never been clearer in describing the existential threat facing humanity. In fact, the World Meteorological Organization recently reported that the number of climate change-induced disasters had increased 500 per cent in the last 50 years, resulting in US$3.64 trillion worth of damage and the loss of 2 million lives. The unprecedented Australian and... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3154967/net-zero-no-solution-climate-change-its-fantasy-rich-countries?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3154967/net-zero-no-solution-climate-change-its-fantasy-rich-countries?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 07 Nov 2021 00:00:23 +0000 In late June and early July, First Nations communities in Canada found over 1,000 unmarked graves of children in Indian residential schools, which were run by the Roman Catholic Church from 1899 to 1997. This has led to activists burning Catholic churches and taking down statues of Queen Elizabeth II and Queen Victoria. These residential schools often coercively separated First Nations children from families, forcing them to speak English and learn European curriculums. Any attempt to dress,... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3145649/remember-maos-famine-forget-churchills-racism-how-west-colonised?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3145649/remember-maos-famine-forget-churchills-racism-how-west-colonised?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 22 Aug 2021 03:00:18 +0000 A tipping point has been reached, even if it has hardly been discussed within societies and by political leaders. Across the non-Western world, there is growing awareness and rejection of the hypocrisy, insincerity and insecurity embedded in the Western world with regard to its relations with the global majority.  Western narratives and propaganda took hold across the world over the last 200 years as a result of colonisation and imperialism. Mind capture was a necessary tool of oppression to... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3135049/world-woke-western-posturing-and-global-white-privilege?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3135049/world-woke-western-posturing-and-global-white-privilege?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 29 May 2021 09:00:07 +0000 For many in the West, the arrival of Covid-19 vaccines has come as a relief. Getting vaccinated, or seeing their family getting vaccinated, was their first feeling that the pandemic might finally be ending. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recently said it expected the vaccine roll-out to increase global growth. All of this is good news on many fronts. But for billions around the world, that same feeling of relief will not come for months, if not years, and many... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3125085/vaccine-apartheid-how-white-privilege-woven-fabric-globalisation?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3125085/vaccine-apartheid-how-white-privilege-woven-fabric-globalisation?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 13 Mar 2021 21:00:07 +0000 To say that everyone should be concerned about Hong Kong’s youth would be an understatement. The protests last year struck the first blow to the economy, and Covid-19 has made matters worse. The global economic downturn has now closed off many of the opportunities for a young person’s first job. Students are graduating into a poor job market. This has effects on mental health: one 2020 survey found that 57 per cent of young Hongkongers were reporting signs of moderate to severe depression. Chief... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3114592/hong-kongs-young-people-can-be-trusted-citys-future-give-them?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3114592/hong-kongs-young-people-can-be-trusted-citys-future-give-them?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 20 Dec 2020 01:00:12 +0000 Make America Great Again may be US President Donald Trump’s rallying cry to his base, but it should also be recognised as a by-product of a much more significant trend: America’s fear of competing in a post-Western world. Every week, if not every day, there seems to be some new American policy targeting China. Sanctions against Huawei and ZTE. Executive actions against TikTok and WeChat. New scrutiny of Chinese companies on US exchanges. Arrests of Chinese – and Chinese-Americans – accused of... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3104000/us-fears-competition-its-status-head-global-order-must-now-be?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3104000/us-fears-competition-its-status-head-global-order-must-now-be?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 02 Oct 2020 21:00:06 +0000 I’m a biochemical engineer by training, and thus the topic of developing and governing science and technology is a topic very close to my heart. Living in Hong Kong, I’ve been influenced by my experiences over the past 25 years working in the region and the great strides that China has made. Many of us in the arenas of science and technology have lost sight of the purpose of science and technological development. Human advances in science and technology over the past 20 years have exceeded the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3098394/constant-mistrust-chinese-science-and-technology-must-be?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3098394/constant-mistrust-chinese-science-and-technology-must-be?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 23 Aug 2020 04:00:17 +0000 Since the implementation of the new national security law, there has been concern that some Hong Kong people may choose to leave the city. A few places are openly considering making it easier for Hong Kong people to move to their countries, with Britain – despite its government’s anti-immigration Brexit stance – going the furthest in expanding the rights afforded to holders of BNO (British National Overseas) status. Despite commentary from foreign governments that these moves are motivated by a... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3096536/leaving-hong-kong-isnt-answer-staying-and-building-new-one?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3096536/leaving-hong-kong-isnt-answer-staying-and-building-new-one?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 08 Aug 2020 05:30:17 +0000 When George Floyd was killed by a white police officer in May, it tore open the racial fault lines that have run through the United States for centuries. The impact was felt elsewhere in the Anglosphere, particularly in Britain, stirring renewed debate about the nature and scale of white privilege. On June 18, the Church of England and the Bank of England admitted to being complicit in hundreds of years of oppression of black populations across the world. It took these institutions centuries to... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3090803/white-privilege-dismantle-it-we-must-first-learn-identify-it?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3090803/white-privilege-dismantle-it-we-must-first-learn-identify-it?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 27 Jun 2020 21:00:11 +0000 Last Thursday, May 21, at the Two Sessions of the National People’s Congress and the CPPCC, Beijing announced that this year it was dropping its growth targets, which have been a feature of Chinese economic planning since 1990. One has to assume Beijing would have preferred not to have to drop the growth target. The Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting global recession has surely made any growth target very difficult to reach, not just for China but for all countries. In that context, this was... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3086769/chinas-decision-drop-economic-growth-target-blessing-disguise?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3086769/chinas-decision-drop-economic-growth-target-blessing-disguise?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 31 May 2020 03:30:18 +0000 Many non-Americans (and likely many Americans) would have been amazed at the dirty linen being aired on global news networks over the past week. Given the tense arguments between municipal, state and federal leaders in the United States, it seems like the country is facing disunity unseen since its Civil War. It is still surprising that the US – the world’s largest and most advanced economy – is clearly struggling to make and procure basic medical equipment. One of the world’s great cities – New... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3078386/coronavirus-has-exposed-diseased-heart-global-economy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3078386/coronavirus-has-exposed-diseased-heart-global-economy?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 05 Apr 2020 10:45:11 +0000 Massive fires threaten people’s homes across a vast region. Smoke drastically reduces air quality, even in cities hundreds of miles away, affecting millions. Old growth and unique biodiversity are threatened as wide-ranging flora and fauna lose their habitats to the flames. Carbon dioxide emissions exceed the annual outputs from some large industrial nations. These sentences could describe the Australian bush fires that dominated global headlines over December and January, but they could also... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3050727/climate-change-why-do-western-environmental-crises-get-more-media?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3050727/climate-change-why-do-western-environmental-crises-get-more-media?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 15 Feb 2020 08:30:13 +0000 The protests in Hong Kong have caught us all with our pants down. The sight of tear gas, riot police and violence on the streets where many of us live, work and shop should shock much of Hong Kong’s society out of its complacency. Many in the civil service, political parties and business elite had assumed that they could continue with what worked well in the past. It is clear that these do not work now, and perhaps never truly worked well. It is time for the government, civil service, and... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3021009/ten-steps-end-hong-kongs-crisis-and-avert-next-one?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3021009/ten-steps-end-hong-kongs-crisis-and-avert-next-one?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 03 Aug 2019 00:15:11 +0000 Southeast Asia has largely been spared a recurrence of the haze that blanketed Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta in 2015. Good weather and better management procedures in 2018 helped prevent the Indonesian forest fires that had done so much damage three years earlier, and Indonesian officials are predicting they’ll be able to handle firespots when this year’s hazy season comes around in late June. But most officials would admit their success has as much to do with luck as better practices.... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3015258/southeast-asia-needs-long-term-solutions-overcome-potential-haze?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3015258/southeast-asia-needs-long-term-solutions-overcome-potential-haze?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 20 Jun 2019 02:00:12 +0000 In small villages throughout India, many poor families have modern appliances, including refrigerators, washing machines and televisions. But many of these appliances are often unpowered and unused, due to the lack of reliable power or no power at all. Some homes, with dirt floors and thatched roofs, appear as they did centuries ago.  Over the years, politicians have given gifts of this nature to garner support or homeowners have bought appliances with meagre savings. But policies directly... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3011289/true-measure-indian-democracy-found-outside-ballot-box?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3011289/true-measure-indian-democracy-found-outside-ballot-box?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 23 May 2019 02:00:17 +0000 When you have keenly followed the reaction of the West to the rise of Asia over the years, you find yourself inclined to moments of clarity that go like this: “Haven’t I seen this movie before?” The movie, in this case, is The Yellow Peril. Are you now enjoying its sequel, Huawei to Hell? One of the good things about being a student in an Asian university during the cold war was the access to newspapers from the bourgeois, liberal West. It was interesting to note how Asia and its future were... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3009842/us-anxiety-over-huawei-sequel-yellow-peril?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3009842/us-anxiety-over-huawei-sequel-yellow-peril?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 11 May 2019 10:10:09 +0000 Even after the predictions telling us that Typhoon Mangkhut would be an unusually severe storm, it is likely that no one expected it to be as serious as it was. Mangkhut was the most intense storm since records began, with the highest wind speeds and storm surges ever recorded. And it has had some of the largest impacts: the number of emergency calls was five times higher than last year’s super typhoon, and the insurance bill from property damage will likely dwarf any previous storm at US$1... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2165061/typhoon-mangkhuts-message-hong-kong-rethink?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2165061/typhoon-mangkhuts-message-hong-kong-rethink?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 21 Sep 2018 07:00:15 +0000 In a recent interview on CNN to promote his new film BlacKkKlansman, the film producer Spike Lee said he keeps making films on race because America has never come to terms with its history of slavery and racism. He is right but could have gone further and said that neither has it confronted how its foreign policy is shaped by the deep-seated racism that moulds the political views of its leaders. The past few months have revealed a great deal of that ugliness in the American government and its... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2163246/foreign-lives-matter-asia-should-beware-racist-us-foreign-policy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2163246/foreign-lives-matter-asia-should-beware-racist-us-foreign-policy?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 08 Sep 2018 22:00:45 +0000 Walk into any international airport’s bookstore and, regardless of where you are, you’ll find the same types of books. There will be the one extolling the virtues of the latest American or European business tycoon. Several will debate the first years of US President Donald Trump’s White House. One will discuss technological disruption as viewed by Western experts. There will be several thick volumes about the first or second world wars, redescribing the victories of the Allies. When you find a... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2152304/why-so-few-asian-authors-airport-bookstores?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2152304/why-so-few-asian-authors-airport-bookstores?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 30 Jun 2018 06:00:30 +0000 Donald Trump’s first visit to Asia showed the region at its best and its worst. In Japan, South Korea and China, the US president was greeted with extreme deference. From his ­address to the Korean National Assembly, to Shinzo Abe’s buddy routine, to dinner with Xi Jinping in the Forbidden City, he was treated as a political ­celebrity, and not a politician unpopular abroad and at home. On the one hand, this shows how Asian countries continue to feel subservient to the US. Trump has criticised... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2121383/xi-jinping-and-shinzo-abe-can-lead-asian-century-if-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2121383/xi-jinping-and-shinzo-abe-can-lead-asian-century-if-china?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 24 Nov 2017 06:01:10 +0000 Three months ago, Rex Tillerson was CEO of a global oil giant with a mixed reputation on global issues such as climate change and the environment. Today, he is the top American diplomat, working for a president whose foreign policy approach, as a New York Times editorial put it, “has rattled the world” and, as the Financial Times described it, “scares a lot of people witless”. So what are we to make of the statement in Seoul last week by Tillerson – a foreign policy novice – that diplomacy with... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2081788/time-asian-style-diplomacy-not-us-take-lead-north-korea?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2081788/time-asian-style-diplomacy-not-us-take-lead-north-korea?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 24 Mar 2017 04:45:49 +0000 Even by the usually shallow standards of American politics, the 2016 election is dire. There is little policy discussion to speak of, as both sides resort to character attacks and accusations. Many Americans have despaired about their choices this year. Donald Trump is widely viewed as unqualified for the presidency, but he still appeals to about 40 per cent of America. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, comes with a great deal of self-inflicted baggage. Her opponents say she is the “most... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2042355/if-us-voters-cannot-be-trusted-choose-able-president-let?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2042355/if-us-voters-cannot-be-trusted-choose-able-president-let?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 04 Nov 2016 03:04:26 +0000 The global economy seems, once again, to be in unchartered waters. No one quite knows what is going on but recent explanations have included the historic low price of oil, the US Federal Reserve’s interest rate hike and China’s slowing economy. The latter has lately come to the fore, as China’s stock market troubles have made world headlines for all the wrong reasons: above photographs of elderly Chinese watching images of collapsing share prices. This is an image we don’t see with other stock... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1903787/chinas-stock-crisis-gives-beijing-opportunity-create-market?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1903787/chinas-stock-crisis-gives-beijing-opportunity-create-market?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 24 Jan 2016 03:01:47 +0000 Hong Kong residents who have been travelling these past two weeks will have experienced what it is like to have the international media as your only source of information. You would be excused for being under the impression that the city was in chaos, that the People's Liberation Army was massed at the border and that a revolution was under way. You would also have learned from leading experts that democracy is a panacea to all ills, and that any non-English-speaking local who looks a bit rough... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1617027/hong-kong-has-more-just-democracy-worry-about?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1617027/hong-kong-has-more-just-democracy-worry-about?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 15 Oct 2014 09:30:00 +0000 What do you think would be the tenor of global debate if President Xi Jinping, on a tour of South America, were to give speeches at each stop about the threat posed to the region by the United States? While visiting Cuba, he would offer promises of "deepening our alliance". And, at the trip's end in Mexico, Xi would call that country "freedom's frontier … on this divided peninsula". Anything of the sort would be greeted by the universal outrage of global commentators - and probably by calls for... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1514934/asias-leaders-must-work-together-solve-their-problems-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1514934/asias-leaders-must-work-together-solve-their-problems-and?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 18 May 2014 18:32:02 +0000 The cover of a recent issue of The Economist featured a Chinese dragon encircling the globe, covering it in smoke and flame. The title read "The world's worst polluter." It was a bold cover typical of The Economist, but it betrayed deep-rooted ideological biases and did its readers a great disservice. It was, in too many ways, what has become the quintessential "China story" - one that emphasises the nation's huge and growing impact on the world but chooses only to highlight its negative aspects... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1307810/distorted-view-china-overlooks-its-many-positive?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1307810/distorted-view-china-overlooks-its-many-positive?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 10 Sep 2013 16:00:00 +0000 For most people in the developed world, food security is not an issue thought about on a daily basis. But this may soon change. In recent years, food prices have risen sharply and have become much more volatile. All of this has not gone unnoticed. Many governments and militaries have been increasing their stockpiles of food. Even investors are getting in on the action. But almost nothing is being done to address the actual problem: global food supplies are under enormous pressure from an... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1106839/modern-farming-must-be-weaned-chemical-use?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1106839/modern-farming-must-be-weaned-chemical-use?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 16 Dec 2012 16:00:00 +0000 If, given the imminent rise of Asia, the world wants to avoid a bleak future, austerity has to be the new global norm. While that suggestion may provoke consternation in many of the world's leading economists, it is still the only way to address global inequalities - which these prominent economists at least profess to care about deeply. But one should not expect any miracles - or much support, for that matter - from the West, given its politics, ideological biases and sense of entitlement. The... https://www.scmp.com/article/1006912/leaner-fitter?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/1006912/leaner-fitter?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 15 Jul 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Myanmar faces a tricky future finding a development model that will allow it to alleviate poverty and create an equitable society. As one of the last countries in Asia to open its doors, it has the opportunity to draw on some of the lessons its neighbours have learnt from their decades-long pursuit of growth at any cost. Many in the region now lament the erosion of cultures and values, and the high cost to their resource base that has accompanied their embrace of unfettered free markets and... https://www.scmp.com/article/994082/myanmar-must-not-squander-its-riches-rush-grow?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/994082/myanmar-must-not-squander-its-riches-rush-grow?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 29 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Chandran Nair, a wealthy engineer turned think-tank director and flag-waver for the Asian cause, stares out the window on what a decade ago would have been a beautiful, clear autumn morning in Hong Kong. Instead, with the city choked in a depressing haze of smog, Mr Nair shakes his head and issues a statement that would not only be ridiculed in the towers of power and halls of learning in the western world, but could well see him held up as a misguided economic heretic. 'Capitalism does not... https://www.scmp.com/article/521557/asian-agenda?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/521557/asian-agenda?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 21 Oct 2005 16:00:00 +0000